Just in time for Valentines Day - Vampire Squid on Delray Beach

A strange and unusual visitor made a landing on Delray Beach in Florida this week. Caught on video by a few enterprising locals who had never seen anything like it...and probably will never again.

What looks to be a rare Vampire Squid order Vampyromorphida is normally found at depths in excess of 2000-3000 feet making this specimen worthy of collection. No word if anyone recovered the obviously distressed animal or not:

Cephalopodia - New Squid Discovered!

Scientists announced the discovery of a new squid species this week.

The new species of deep red, glowing squid was living near undersea mountains in the southern Indian Ocean, scientists announced Monday.

At about 28 inches (70 centimeters) long, the as yet "unnamed species" is relatively big.

We would like to toss a few completely unauthorized and non scientific names into the hat for the researchers tasked with naming this new critter:

1. Glowanchus Big Reddicus

2. Hot Tamlus Glowanchus

2. X-Mas Light Squid

Sea of Cortez - Predator Nursery

As word slowly leaks out of the Sea of Cortez, what started as a hypothesis, has now become a full blown four alarm eco disaster.

The oceans have a new super predator that has migrated into the top of the food chain. Where once tuna and sharks selectively culled, these animals indiscriminately destroy everything in their path. This is a prime example of predator loss upsetting the natural balance of our oceans and it is happening right now.

From RTSea Productions and the RTSea Blog:

Guadalupe Island Mystery - Leachia dislocata

The great Guadalupe Island Squid Mystery seems to be solved with an email we received this morning and it looks like we might be contributing to science.

Aloha Annie et al.,

The squid is Leachia dislocata . It is the third arms that are elongated, not the fourth but this is difficult to tell from the photograph. The squid looks (pigmentation) like it is close to maturity. I hope that it was preserved. It is a valuable specimen and should be sent to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (c/o Dr. Eric Hochberg).

Best wishes,
Dick

Editors Note: The specimen was saved, and then thrown out last night as it was sitting in the chefs freezer on board the MV Horizon. The good news is the crew went "dumpster diving" as soon as we called and our little Leachia dislocata has been brought back for science...in the nick of time.

Science ain't pretty sometimes but the crew of the MV Horizon and Shark Diver will go to almost any lengths to help it along.

Isla Guadalupe - Name That Cephalopod

We're back from the Island of the Great White Sharks - Isla Guadalupe. As the only shark diving vessel on site for the entire week it was a unique experience having this remote and pristine island all to ourselves.

We'll be writing up a full trip report this week once the crew has had a chance to get settled.

Right now it's this critter we're most interested in.

On day three of our five day expedition this little squid drifted past our cages and was scooped up by an alert diver.

Absolutely translucent with internal organs on display (click image for larger view) this squid came with bioluminescent gel packs on the undersides of it's eyes - one very interesting cephalopod.

We're giving away a DVD copy of the Island of the Great White Shark to the first person to positively ident this critter.

The tail fin arrangement was also very cool.

O.K, we'll also throw in a Shark Diver hat and t-shirt as well. We have a boatload of shark divers who want to know.

Cephelapod Use #22 - Brain Booster

Depending who you speak with - and we speak with absolutely everyone, rising squid populations are responsible for fisheries collapses worldwide.

The theory goes something like this:

Sharks (who eat squids) are being killed off leaving an open predatory niche in the worlds oceans. Unfortunately squids reproduce at the rate of millions and without sharks to control populations, swarms of these critters are taking over delicate feeding chains decimating fish stocks...or so this theory goes.

We submit to this theory, mainly because the folks behind it are smarter then we are. So it is with little surprise that researchers at the Council of Agriculture’s Fisheries Research Institute in Taipei have found the brain boosting compound PL-DHA (phospholipid docosahexaenoic acid) in squid skins.

Huzzah!

If you want to eradicate anything commercially from the ocean, you need to first come up a with a financial reason to do so, thank you researcher guys in Taipei. Now we can all be a bit smarter while doing the job sharks used to do before we killed them all off...back in our dumber days that is.